Anyone else having problems with their heat shields?

Somehow I missed this thread being updated over and over, day after day. To tie up some loose ends: In the diagram, the cat is #1. In real life, it is the 1st bulge after the exhaust manifold and has the lower O2 sensor immediately downstream.
In my headerwrap installation, I did not cover the resonators because I feared that they may get hotter than the rest of the exhaust because they could slightly impede flow in order to reduce noise and resonance. I have not had any issues for 3 seasons now, so I think I can report this option is a success (in drier states at least) Not sure if I would have done this if I lived in the Rust Belt or PNW.
I do like Geeshik's heat shield replacement. I just didn't want to go through the bother of prefabbing things. Using headerwrap cost me <$25 and took 15 minutes.
 
To tie up some loose ends: In the diagram, the cat is #1. In real life, it is the 1st bulge after the exhaust manifold and has the lower O2 sensor immediately downstream.

Just to be clear, there are two converters on our 5's, one in the manifold assy (#1) and one at the front of the midpipe (#2). In your repair I would double check how hot the floorboards is getting above that second cat since there is no shielding above it. If it's not getting hot then maybe I wouldn't worry about it but do understand that is a converter and not a resonator.
 
Tonight was the first night getting the car back so I could work on it. My wife is driving my truck with the kids. So far, the car has done fine without the heat shielding near the firewall. I hope to get that in tomorrow. I am also going to do an oil change, swap out the ridiculous cartridge filter housing, and change the thermostat. Her check engine light came on with the code P0126 last week. All the parts are here, and the car is up, so it's all getting done this weekend. It is a bear finding coolant for these cars. I finally settled on the Zerex purple asian coolant. I'll flush the system of the dark green and start over. That stuff is way to hard to find and it is way to expensive.
 
Our shield rattled on our 07, ripped it off with no side effects. Been driving that way for a year and a half. Been on LONG drives and no issues. Maybe the air is cooler here. ha ha.
 
Thank you for the post OP. My shield starting rattling about a week ago. Your trick with the vice grips was just what I needed. A few fender washers later, my shield is nice and quiet.
 
My wife informed me she was getting a really loud rattle when idling, and a scraping sound on occasion when driving up concrete aprons off of the street. I looked under the car and the gas tank heat shield was folded down and bent over. Her Mazda5 is a 2007. The little nuts that hold the heat shield in place pulled clean through it because the heat shield rotted out around them. The studs that the nuts go onto were rusted badly. I soaked them in penetrating oil and I was able to get all but one off without breaking them, but I was very irritated to find that the studs that attatch to the gas tank straps do so on a little sheet metal ear that hangs down. When you try to loosen the nut, the whole ear bends. I ended up using a vise-grip to hold the ear and a 3/8 drive ratchet with a 10mm deepwell socket to get the nuts off. My preference of course, would be a 1/4 inch drive. I had to loosen it a little, soak it again with penetrating oil, tighten it, loosen it, etc. to get each one off without breaking them.
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Eventually, the hardware store opened, and i was able to buy the new M6x1.0 pitch nuts and some stainless fender washers to hold what was left of the heat shield up. I put a bunch of antiseize on them and two nuts per stud (the one on the washer was a flange nut and the one on the end, i used a nylock to keep the water and salt from getting on the threads). I could have just cut them shorter, but I didn't want to break out my air tools and fire up my compressor that early in the morning.
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Another thing I noted was that in front, right above what looks like the catalytic converter setup, there is a heat shield in the tunnel for the exhaust that is essentially aluminum foil wrapped over some fiberglass insulation. Half of the foil is gone and the insulation is exposed. Is this thing in danger of catching fire? Do I need to order a new shield for it and pull everything apart (exhaust, crossmembers, etc.) just so that I can know my wife and kids are going to be safe? Can I even get a new shield? I would think there should be a recall for an issue like this BEFORE something bad does happen.
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This car has 96,000 miles on it. My Focus had 200,000 on it before i had to mess with the heat shields at all.
Thanks alot for the pics. I just did mine the same way and it will hold up for now. 2 of my bolts were rusted on too badly to get off and I was on the ground trying to do it so it wasn't the easiest thing to reach. Your explanation helped me alot!
 
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